Friday, October 19, 2012

A Few Useful eLearning Resources

This past weekend at the 2012 Ubiquitous Learning conference, I attended a session by Mark A. Woolwine, who showcased several online resources for use in education. Several of them were already familiar to me, but there were just as many that were not.

The following is a selection of resources from Woolwine's presentation, "Engaging Students with a Mosaic of Technology" that might be new and useful to eLearning instructors:

To Share with Students --

Cramberry - https://cramberry.net/
A free online flash card tool for students. Students can make their own flash cards or use ones that are already available on the side, then see their progress. The free account allows students to study 30 cards per day.

My StudentBook - http://mystudentbook.com/
StudentBook is a free application to help students manage assignments, exam dates, and grades.

Time Management / Organization --

Sandglaz - http://www.sandglaz.com/
This is yet another free-with-basic-options time-management app, not specific to students but more general for anyone looking to boost productivity.

Concept Board - http://conceptboard.com/
This service allows for real-time group collaboration on concept mapping and other documents. There is a free 30-day trial, but then users need to pay an annual account fee.

Creately - http://creately.com/
This is another concept mapping tool that allows users to create online diagrams, flow charts, etc. The free version has more limited options.

LucidChart - https://www.lucidchart.com/
This is another concept-mapping tool that lets collaborators work on a diagram in real time. it's free for a 14-day trial and then has a monthly fee.

Vyew - http://vyew.com/s/
This is another real-time collaboration platform. Users can work share documents, multimedia, etc. in a shared space. Free with limited real-time users.

McScoring - http://www.mcscoring.com/
This is a web app that lets teachers create an online form for simple multiple choice tests. Test questions and other information will need to be provided separately, but this makes it easy for instructors to process test scores.

Visually Powerful --

Graph.tk - http://graph.tk/
This
is an online, open-source graphing utility, apparently. The link goes
directly to a graph with a small formula box and no explanatory text.

SlideRocket - http://www.sliderocket.com/
This is an impressive multimedia-rich presentation builder/social sharing platform for people who want to move beyond PowerPoint, free-with-basic-options. There is also a free iPad app.

BioDigital Human - https://www.biodigitalhuman.com/home/
This application may not be terribly useful in the College of Business, but it looks cool. BioDigital Human is a 3D platform to help students understand anatomy and medicine in a virtual simulation.